>Doug Henwood writes:
>
>> Our airline industry is a wreck.
>
>I think you have to distinguish between "old school" airline industry
>(UAL, DAL, AMR) and "new school" airline industry (LUV, JBLU, AWA,
>etc.). The old school folks are losing money hand over fist; airlines
>like Southwest are going like gangbusters: Southwest flew the largest
>number of passengers of any US arline last month, for the first time
>ever. There's something interesting going on there ...
Oh right, kind of like Old Europe/New Europe. So very American - let's just focus on the successes and just ignore the carnage to the side.
How many of these new airlines have sprouted up only to disappear after a year or three?
And regardless of their, possibly temporary, triumphs, the industry as a whole is a mess, racking up massive losses with layoffs by the thousands. From the passengers' point of view, the fare structure is completely insane - fares on similar flights can vary by 100% or more - and over the 24-year history of dereg, the airfares component of the CPI has risen well over twice as much as the broad index (393% vs. 168%). That's mainly because of quality decreases - tighter advance purchase restrictions and one- and two-stop flights replacing nonstops.
Doug